


cardboard boxes

by heather_in_hell



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sadness, emotional wreck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 03:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10779051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heather_in_hell/pseuds/heather_in_hell
Summary: She closes her eyes and tries to block out the image of a moving truck pulling into his drive way and the family who will eventually fill the empty spaces in the house where he couldn't.Short AU where JD moves away.





	cardboard boxes

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short scene I couldn't get out of my head. Takes place in the early morning of JD's moving day, a little after Kurt and Ram are murdered. I understand the canon storyline took place over like two weeks, but in my mind it was longer than that (like a month and a half or something), so just go with it.

She’s staring at his back. Her view is partially obscured by the soft blue sheets burying half her face. She counts each and every freckle on his shoulder blades with sorrowful eyes, going over the same ones multiple times. She’s not trying to keep track. Taking him in as he is in this moment is enough. Being here with him is enough. Except it’s not enough, but Veronica’s trying to convince herself otherwise.

 

They slept at her house that night. JD insisted. There was no way he was going to sleep in his bare, empty ghost of a room scattered with half-full cardboard boxes of his things. Really, it looked almost the same as it did when he moved in: plain walls, creaky floorboards, broken window lock that Veronica worsened the night she’d snuck into his room and made him hers, all hers. He had come and gone and made no dent, like no one was ever there.

 

Veronica’s wide awake but feels tired, not quite in the sleep deprived sense, but in a way that fills her with cloudiness and dread. Her mind and body are on two completely different levels. She slept light that night, only a few hours, though its felt like minutes.

 

“JD,” she whispers. Her mouth is dry and her tongue is heavy.

 

He doesn’t respond at first, but she knows he’s awake. Definitely longer than she’s been. He wasn't much of a sleeper from what she’s learned in her short time of knowing him.

 

She’s hesitant to touch him. She wants to reach out and let her fingertips trail along the figure turned away from her, but she’s almost scared of his stillness, the eeriness of not seeing his features and his silence stirring uncertainty into her core.

 

“Why the silent treatment?” she says. She wants her voice to come off as cute and teasing, but out loud it’s thin and barely there.

 

JD breathes in the slightest bit. “What’s there to talk about?” His voice is toneless.

 

Her eyes dart over to the clock on the wall. It’s 5:18 a.m.

 

“Anything,” she replies. “I don’t know.”

 

When he doesn’t answer, Veronica feels a pang of anger. Angry at him for coming and going faster than she could blink. Angry for blowing up her life by involving her in murdering her supposed friends and remaining indifferent to it. Angry at herself for also sort of being indifferent to it. And at the root of it, angry for not really hating him. Not entirely.

 

“I don’t want you to go.” It comes out before she can catch herself from saying it, a battering ram from the inside of her mouth. She expects him to be irritated. Instead, he shifts slowly so he’s on his back staring at the ceiling.

 

“It’s not my fault,” he says in a quiet voice, mindful not to wake Veronica’s parents a few rooms over. “You know I’d change it if I could.”

 

 _But all of this is your fault_ , she thinks. _You can’t just leave. You can’t just leave after everything you started._

He was upfront with her about his dad's vagabond-like job and how he's prone to moving all the time. And yet, they didn't care, believed they were invincible to it. She wants to hate him for it. Well, she does. Just not the way she wants to.

 

She closes her eyes and tries to block out the image of a moving truck pulling into his drive way and the family who will eventually fill the empty spaces in the house where he couldn't. The pillow makes a ruffling sound beside her and when she opens her eyes JD’s head is turned to her. He looks tired, all mussed hair and vacant expression. But she knows his mind is racing; knows his head won't shut up and leave him be. And he’s looking at her like the room has melted away and they are here, together, far away where no one can touch them. It looks a lot like the way he looked at her after they murdered their classmates in cold blood.

 

The corner of his mouth lifts into the subtlest, sad smile. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip hard when the lump starts to form in her throat.

 

“I don’t want you to go,” she repeats lamely, quieter than the first time to hide the wavering in her voice.  But he hears it, she knows he does, because he moves his body to fully face her and his hand goes to the side of her face, messily pushing her hair behind her ear and sliding down the nape of her neck. He brings her face to his, almost uncomfortably close because he won’t get to be this close to her again, and kisses her.

 

It’s soft and slow like any pre-sunlight, lazy morning kiss would be, and Veronica takes his bottom lip between her teeth and bites, not enough to seriously hurt him but enough to surprise him, his shoulders going tense and his breath hitching. There. Maybe that can be her own way of getting back at him for everything he’s done to her life.  Insignificant gesture of affection turned the opposite.

 

They break away. “Can we just…” JD says against her lips, his voice strained like he’s holding something back, “…not talk about it? Can we just stay here and forget?”

 

She nods. How nice it would be to forget. How nice it would be to disappear into silence.

 

He pulls her against his chest and she settles into him, hyper aware of his heart beat echoing in his bony ribcage like an unruly drum trying to adjust its tempo. It both calms and discomforts her. Still, it’s better than acknowledging the moving truck, the cardboard boxes, the mess he’s left behind. So she forgets, and presses herself further into him and waits for the birds to start singing outside.


End file.
